


Changing the Ending

by rinkle



Category: Numb3rs (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:14:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29040720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinkle/pseuds/rinkle
Summary: Detached, sleep walking - some of the words that described Don during Arrow of Time. Missing scenes.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Changing the Ending

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Don’t own, not making money  
> Characters: Don, Bradford  
> Genre: Gen  
> Spoilers: Arrow of Time  
> A/N: Well, hello again. It’s been awhile. Rewatching my Numb3rs dvds and some things are starting to maybe get the writing brain going again. Bit rusty. Not betaed.
> 
> **In Memory of ALEO. You are missed.**

How to avoid the inevitable? How could he do that? 

Don closed his eyes briefly, taking a breath.

* * *

“Back when I started seeing you…” Don shrugged. “ _I_ do all the dirty jobs. I don’t trust them, they need to trust me.”

Bradford rested his hands on the concrete railing in front of him, leaning forward and waiting for him to continue.

“I don’t want to kill Buck,” Don said, shaking his head and then running his hand through his hair. “If I go out there…” 

“What do you think he wants?”

Don gave a shaky laugh. “To kill me. For me to kill him.” He tilted his head. “To go out the same way Crystal did, maybe.”

“So how do you avoid killing him?”

A wry smile and shake of his head was Don’s reply. “Trust my agents. Let them do their jobs. Until…” He trailed off.

“Until?” 

“I have to face him.”

Bradford asked the question that was plaguing Don. “And how do you change the ending?”

* * *

What did Buck really want? To kill him? To be killed? Buck had made it all about Don, threatened him. The call. The usual threats, but something else there. And giving Don his cell number. Taking a step to ending it. He’d have to know that Don wouldn’t be going to any meeting alone. If he just wanted to kill Don, the call didn’t make sense. There was something more. 

To Buck it was all about Crystal. And Don was the one who’d killed her. Who had taken her away from him. Buck was trying to choose his ending. Buck was trying to force Don to give him his ending.

* * *

Don had trusted his team. Now they needed to trust him. The phone calls to Buck, letting Don pick the time and place…

Don would be choosing this ending. 

Don would not be killing Buck Winters.

—FIN—


End file.
